Pfffft.
I was a customer service specialist (Ooooooo!!) for a cellular company for 4 years. I took all the customer complaint calls. Oh, the stories I can tell! But the one that really stands out is a guy who owned a tree-trimming service. He had about 8 lines with us. His name was Sonny, and he was an asshole! He was just an angry, combative person all the way around.
Sonny stormed into the shop, pissed off about his bill, which he hadn’t brought with him, yelling “Just cancel the Goddamn phones!”
I pulled his bill up on my computer and he said that didn’t look anything like his bill so just cancel the Goddamn phones!
So then I had corporate fax me a copy of his bill, and was trying to show him what the problem was (one of the lines had massive roaming charges, which were valid) but he said that didn’t look anything like his Goddamn bill and what was I trying to pull over on him and just cancel the Goddamn phones!
My most important job was to stop people from canceling their Goddamn phones, so I put up with his tirade for about 15 minutes, getting absolutely nowhere. The attacks were getting personal, too.
I was getting pretty upset myself, but #1 rule in customer service is “Don’t get upset.”
But I was really upset, so finally I said, very professionally and calmly, “Can you hang on a second? I’ll be right back.”
And I went to my desk and, with savage glee, cancelled all 8 of the Goddamn phones which added $1,600 in early termination fees to his bill! Take that you SOB!
LOL! Went back up front…and he was trying to use his Goddamn phone!
“What happened to my Goddamn phone?!” he yelled.
“You told me to cancel them, so I did.”
“WELL I DIDN’T MEAN CANCEL THEM RIGHT THIS GODDAMN MINUTE!”
LOL!
So I went back and turned his Goddamn phones back on, and reversed all 8 of the $200 early termination fees, went back up front and told him I had just saved him $1,600!
For some reason calling his bluff seemed to totally calm him down. You would think it would have the opposite effect, but it didn’t.
So we were able to resolve his issue (the charges were valid and he needed to talk to the employee that caused them) and I was his best friend after that.